Jeff V. sent me an article last Christmas, but I never got a chance to mention it. I’m making amends today.
Three years ago at Slate Magazine, Steven E. Landsburg wrote an article in praise of misers: “What I like about Scrooge”. Though the piece is funny, its message is very serious: saving is a good thing and ought to be rewarded.
In this whole world, there is nobody more generous than the miser — the man who could deplete the world’s resources but chooses not to. The only difference between miserliness and philanthropy is that the philanthropist serves a favored few while the miser spreads his largess far and wide.
If you build a house and refuse to buy a house, the rest of the world is one house richer. If you earn a dollar and refuse to spend a dollar, the rest of the world is one dollar richer — because you produced a dollar’s worth of goods and didn’t consume them.
This makes a certain sort of sense, I must admit. You earn money through your efforts. But when you delay spending this money, you’re essentially providing your services for free (at least until the money is spent).
Landsburg’s conclusion busts me up, but maybe that’s just because I’m a money geek and a lit geek:
Great artists are sometimes unaware of the deepest meanings in their own creations. Though Dickens might not have recognized it, the primary moral of A Christmas Carol is that there should be no limit on IRA contributions.
I’ll never look at Scrooge the same way again…
[Slate: What I love about Scrooge]
This article is about Funny Money
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If someone missing a front tooth walks into a job interview, do you think that the interviewer would not be concerned?
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The bottom line is that you can’t help those that can’t help themselves.
Minimum Wage, if you are near or in a college town, you might be able to get dental work at a dental school. It’s much cheaper and the dental students need people with dental problems. It’s another option for you, but I think you’d rather spend your time at the library posting comments since I’m assuming you don’t have a computer/internet access at home.
You’re smart enough to know how to get out of your situation.
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@ Minimum Wage:
Here is the hard truth. And I’m telling you because it appears nobody has told you yet.
I’m not being an ass. You can take this or leave it, but it is my honest opinion.
You will never do anything with your life until you stop living as a victim.
It’s that plain and simple. Every post you make has VICTIM written all over it. Like life just continues to screw you over.
You don’t realize just how much control over your life you could have if your mindset was different (this is the problem with most minimum wage workers, not just you).
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So if I apply for jobs and don’t get hired – my resume doesn’t evewn get me an interview, so in those cases, appearance isn’t even an issue – it’s all in my head (mindset)?
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So if I apply for jobs and don’t get hired – my resume doesn’t evewn get me an interview, so in those cases, appearance isn’t even an issue – it’s all in my head (mindset)?
It means you’re not offering value.
Find a job where you do, or change your attitude to show the value you’re offering.
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@ JD I like that you point out the “unofficial perks” because those make a big difference. At my part time job, I make more than minimum wage, and have gotten raises, but am worth more than the position pays. I know I could find a better position and make more, but I like that position, and am paid correctly for the little work I really do there. I do extra as well because I am capable of it, but they can’t give me a raise since the job requirements don’t dictate a hire pay. instead, I get the exact schedule want, I get the freedom to do as I please as long as my work gets done, I take long paid breaks when there is coverage, and managers buy me lunch pretty frequently. I get to mess around with my co-workers and can usually get them out of trouble, and the only time I have ever gotten “in trouble” was when I went over time…and that consisted of getting a write up (required by company policy) and was never mentioned again.
As far as making minimum wage being a choice, it absolutely is. There is a reason I am 22 and make 50+k a year and it isn’t luck. I work my ass off to be the best at what I do. I haven’t worked a minimum wage job since my sophomore year in high school and that was as a telemarketer. I get raises fast and have been in jobs where i have made more than my immediate supervisors because I was better at our job then them. The point is, you work hard, and are actually good at what you do (this is key, because I could work hard and still suck at something) and you will be paid more to do it.
You also have to realize that certain jobs only require so much skill to do. Like my current part time job does not require at 40k per year salary, so there is no way they are going to pay it. So even if I was the best at what I do there, I will only get what the job dictates is a good pay.
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it means you’re not offering value.
And exactly how the heck would I do that? We don’t have performance evaluations or any benchmarks to go by, so no employee has a good sense of the value they are producing.
All we know for sure is that our employer spends roughly half the year (a couple weeks at a time) globetrotting, so we are confident that we produce substantial profit, but we are not in a position to quantify it. (Circulating rumors place last year’s profit in the neighborhood of $3 million, but that is conjecture.)
Since we don’t have the means to pin down our value, and since there is a nearly total disconnect between my skills and my experience, I don’t know how to convey value to a prospective employer. I can certainly claim on a resume to have certain skills, but if they have never been used on the job, employers discount them to something approaching zero.
And if I can’t get a job in which I can use my skills, I’m never going to be able to use those skills to get a good job.
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Where I work, everyone – as far as we know – is paid within 20 cents of minimum wage. (There are a few oldtimers paid this, the rest of us get minimum.) As far as any of us have been able to tell, superior performance won’t get you a raise, and mediocre performance won’t get you a wage cut.
Since I regularly handle cash, getting a similar job elsewhere (which doesn’t really appeal to me) would require a credit check (which seems to be standard in retail these days), and I have terrible credit I cannot fix on a minimum wage income from student loan debt and an uninsured extended hospitalization and illness, so that’s not a likely option.
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…it means you’re not offering value.
And exactly how the heck would I do that?
Are you sure you’re not a 15-year old trying to create excuses for why you returned home after curfew, with a big dent in the car?
Don’t “guess” the employer is getting rich because you show up someplace, and use that as rationale you are worth more. Even if he were getting rich because of you, that’s not relevant. You are only worth the market clearing price for the skills you offer.
Do stuff. Show the results of what you do. Find someone who will pay you for that.
This is done every day by 17-year old kids. There’s no excuse for you to not figure that out.
Or, if nobody will recognize your “mad skilz”, do hourly contract work. You can CERTAINLY mow lawns part-time, like 12-year olds do after school.
If you don’t know how to do anything, and can’t show any results for what you do, then yes, you’re forever doomed to minimum wage from the guy dumb enough to hire you.
Minimum wage isn’t a magic thing, though. That number is irrelevant. As soon as your employer figures out you’re not worth minimum wage, you should be fired.
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Don’t “guess” the employer is getting rich because you show up someplace, and use that as rationale you are worth more. Even if he were getting rich because of you, that’s not relevant. You are only worth the market clearing price for the skills you offer.
I’m not guessing anything. We all KNOW when our employer is on a cruise, or hopping the British Isles, so this part is common knowledge. All I really know is that my employer appears to be making enough money to keep up his hectic travel schedule. Anything beyond that is unsubstantiated rumor, but perception can’t be simply dismissed as irrelevant.
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I’m not guessing anything. We all KNOW when our employer is on a cruise, or hopping the British Isles, so this part is common knowledge. All I really know is that my employer appears to be making enough money to keep up his hectic travel schedule. Anything beyond that is unsubstantiated rumor, but perception can’t be simply dismissed as irrelevant.
Irrelevant. If I can hire another guy to do what you do, but cheaper, you’re not worth what you’re being paid now.
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Again, we don’t have the means to quantify the results of what we do. I’m very good at upselling promotional items, but that’s not sumething for which I have a number to report.
On weekends I end up doing the work that my co-workers won’t do. They don’t have to do it because they have figured out that there is no manager coming in on Sat and Sun to check up on their stocking and cleaning.
And if I have bad (and unfixable) credit and appearance problems, I’m not going to get the job in the first place.
How many middle-aged hamburger flippers have you seen? The first places went to when I was able to return to work were fast food joints. And none of them were interested. I knew that guys my age don’t make good co-workers in a team environment dominated by teenagers, so I wasn’t surprised. But that’s another reality I have to deal with.
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Irrelevant. If I can hire another guy to do what you do, but cheaper, you’re not worth what you’re being paid now.
If my enployer can get all this productivity for minimum wage, a whole lot of people are way overpaid.
Either that of my employer is very good at finding productive workers with problems that keep them out of higher-paying jobs.
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Sounds like value and productivity don’t really get you a higher wage if valuable productive bodies are at surplus.
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Nobody is going to convince this victim that it’s him and not life.
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So what should I do about it?
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I don’t understand this mentality that if someone is telling you about the obstacles he is facing, he’s playing the victim. It is not playing the victim to sum up what is going on in your particular situation. This is MW’s reality. Period. And he’s honest about not knowing how to get out of his situation. Are the rest of you seriously trying to tell the class that you automatically knew how to get ahead in life without anyone coaching you whatsoever? Because if you are, you’re either blind or the best liars I have ever seen. Not that it’s counting much from where I’m sitting, because I know you’re lying.
Oh, right, you worked hard. Well, it sounds like MW is working hard too, unless he is also lying, and it’s amazing to me that nobody is catching this. They’re too busy calling him a victim.
I guess the big question is, What do you do when you work your ass off and nobody will pay you enough to live on? The reason we have minimum-wage jobs is that some people are desperate enough to have to take them. What do we do about that? People have got to have money to live. Some jobs don’t pay that amount. How do we change that?
God forbid we should ask that question because it’s playing victim. Or else “you’re being a victim” is Scroogespeak for “I don’t know the answer but I’m too big a jerk to admit it, so I’ll take my ignorance out on you.” You know, that goes farther than the Democrats ever go towards fomenting class wars in this country.
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Aaand, can we stop pretending a flat tax is a great idea? You think the income tax “punishes” people for working (oh, that’s funny–it taxes capital gains as well), but the sales tax punishes people for buying things as well, and if you have a lower income, the punishment is all the more severe.
I used to live in a state with a base sales tax rate so high that where I was locally it was around nine percent. This included food. There I was between jobs, donating plasma so I wouldn’t starve or be too much of a burden on my roommate, and nine percent of my food bill was going to the damn city, county, and state. $2.70 out of a $30 food bill was a whole gallon of milk back then.
I eventually got a job but I was still going around praying my car wouldn’t break down because I was clearing maybe $280 a week average in a city where the median income was about $40k. Not minimum wage, just production work and when we ran out of stuff to produce for the night, work was over.
I didn’t know the things about money back then that I know now. And eventually my car broke down and my roommate decided not to renew the lease all in the same two-month period, and there was no way I could afford to live on my own. I’ve been going downhill financially ever since.
It isn’t enough to tell people they’re just being victims. The simple point is that being poor is expensive, and you have NO wiggle room for mistakes. Once you’ve made the first one, should Murphy come knocking, you’re screwed. The first mistake costs you, then something bad happens, then you can’t afford to pay for that either, and you just keep losing ground.
I wish there were a website that would offer useful advice for people on the bottom rungs of the ladder. Really. The Tightwad Gazette is helpful in some ways but it’s also growing outdated in terms of specific advice. Because we sure don’t need to hear what losers we are just because we aren’t 25 and making $50k a year. What we need is to hear how to be 34 and finally able to pay the bills on our own without having to go to anyone else with our hands out.
Hm. Maybe I should start that site. *shrug*
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@ Dana:
He’s being a victim because he has an excuse for EVERYTHING people tell him. And when I say EVERYTHING, I’m not exaggerating.
“Aaand, can we stop pretending a flat tax is a great idea? You think the income tax “punishes” people for working (oh, that’s funny–it taxes capital gains as well), but the sales tax punishes people for buying things as well, and if you have a lower income, the punishment is all the more severe.”
1. I’d rather punish spending than punish earning as it makes more sense and doesn’t hurt our economy the way taxing income does.
2. People get to choose how much they spend–it’s not smart to make them choose to earn less to pay less taxes.
3. The Fair Tax does not tax the poor AT ALL!
4. We aren’t talking about a flat tax.
“I used to live in a state with a base sales tax rate so high that where I was locally it was around nine percent. This included food. There I was between jobs, donating plasma so I wouldn’t starve or be too much of a burden on my roommate, and nine percent of my food bill was going to the damn city, county, and state. $2.70 out of a $30 food bill was a whole gallon of milk back then.”
So what? This has nothing to do with the Fair Tax.
“I eventually got a job but I was still going around praying my car wouldn’t break down because I was clearing maybe $280 a week average in a city where the median income was about $40k. Not minimum wage, just production work and when we ran out of stuff to produce for the night, work was over.”
So what?
“I didn’t know the things about money back then that I know now. And eventually my car broke down and my roommate decided not to renew the lease all in the same two-month period, and there was no way I could afford to live on my own. I’ve been going downhill financially ever since.”
So what? This has nothing to do with the Fair Tax.
“It isn’t enough to tell people they’re just being victims.”
Sure it is. The victim mentality is what holds almost ALL poor people back.
“The simple point is that being poor is expensive, and you have NO wiggle room for mistakes.”
And it’s nobody’s fault but yours.
“Once you’ve made the first one, should Murphy come knocking, you’re screwed. The first mistake costs you, then something bad happens, then you can’t afford to pay for that either, and you just keep losing ground.”
Have you ever heard of an emergency fund?
“I wish there were a website that would offer useful advice for people on the bottom rungs of the ladder. Really. The Tightwad Gazette is helpful in some ways but it’s also growing outdated in terms of specific advice. Because we sure don’t need to hear what losers we are just because we aren’t 25 and making $50k a year. What we need is to hear how to be 34 and finally able to pay the bills on our own without having to go to anyone else with our hands out.”
Living frugally isn’t going to make your life better. Doing something to make yourself more valuable in the workforce is, and that starts with deciding not to be a victim.
“Hm. Maybe I should start that site. *shrug*”
Go for it!
Now–back to the Fair Tax…
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“The simple point is that being poor is expensive, and you have NO wiggle room for mistakes.”
And it’s nobody’s fault but yours.
I would say government deserves some blame here.
The house I live in was for sale several years ago. I could have afford to buy it aqt the time, IF it had been available as a stand-alone. (There are two houses on the lot, and the lot could not be split legally, and I couldn’t afford to buy both houses.)
You might say our middle class housing satandards are a good thing, but I would rather have the option of living in “substandard” housing and saving money in the process. Housing is an obvious example of an area where the poor don’t get to choose how much they spend.
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Sure it is. The victim mentality is what holds almost ALL poor people back.
I apply for jobs, I don’t get hired. There’s nothing on my application that says VICTIM.
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The “government” deserves blame?
Your first step in this insanity of yours is to take responsibility. So one day when you stop whining and take the hours and pages of advise directed at you and do something, YOU will get the credit.
I think you enjoy being a victim. I really do. Why do you continue to post if you don’t take any of the ideas and tips? And if you don’t like any of the 45,987 pieces of wisdom you have evoked, why do you come back for more?
One day you may accomplish something and would be nice if that day came soon for the rest of us. I think we would all be willing to pay you off to stop this BS.
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The “government” deserves blame?
Government forces me to spend more on housing than I would choose to spend in a free market.
In a free market, I would now own the house I live in, thereby locking in a fixed-rate payment and avoiding rent increases, plus building home equity and wealth.
Seems obvious, unless you believe a free market really exists in housing, and that I merely “chose” to pass up the opportunity to buy the house I live in when it was on the market.
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Your first step in this insanity of yours is to take responsibility. So one day when you stop whining and take the hours and pages of advise directed at you and do something, YOU will get the credit.
Hey, I *tried* to buy this house when it was on the market. The only thing stopping me was government. So how is my failure to buy the house a result of my lack of taking responsibility?
How do you accomplish something without money? How do I provide value to an employer if I’m not hired?
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The government does what? It forces you to spend more on housing? What on freakin’ earth is going on here?
When will you stop? You are full of piss poor excuses.
You got to keep on dancing man. I came from NOTHING and if I toiled into self-pity all day like you, I would still be living in the projects playing video games all day. Instead I took advice, shut my mouth when people gave me the advice and did something with it.
You sir have received the most attention and most posts for your sob story and you are still posting the same 5th grade BS you have been posting for years now like you are new around here. SHAME ON YOU FOR WASTING EVERYONE’S TIME. Go elsewhere, if the excellent advice people give you every day isn’t good enough for you or your IQ is too small to do something with it.
SHAME ON YOU.
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Actually, the unfair tax structure set is place by the government does favor owning. That is hard to argue.
Why can you deduct interest paid on a mortgage but not on a car? (For the record, I’m not in favor of deductions for either) Why don’t you have to pay taxes on capital gains from a sold residence but not from stocks?
This is a totally different scenario from the split lot Minimum Wage complains about, but I was just saying…
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I agree with Matt: I’d prefer no tax deductions for a house (or a car).
Technically, mortgage tax deductions merely lower the cost of ownership, with the net effect of raising home prices (because they are worth more as a result of the tax credit). That also makes home ownership more sensitive to interest rates (people *used* to want to pay off homes). IMHO, the intended and un-intended consequences is not good for society.
Still, even with the mortgage deduction, that doesn’t always make home ownership a good idea (the current boom/bust being a good example, not to mention property taxes, maintenance, insurance, and other liabilities).
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@Minimum Wage
You have a point about the government regulation preventing your lot from being split. There are a LOT of dumb government regulations out there (many of them supposedly to support the lower classes) that keep minimum wage and low earners back. It would not surprise me if this one was damaging to your situation too.
Here’s the thing, though. You’ve been talking about how you can’t manage to get a job, and you list a number of potential reasons: your appearance, a potential market of surplus labor, lack of a car. Yet you mentioned the possibility of blogging for money. Isn’t this a way to help yourself? There are at least a few markets (web design, for example) that you don’t need transportation for… don’t even need in-person visits for. (And yes, I do buy your appearance argument to SOME degree… studies show that attractive people are more likely to get jobs.) Other people have mentioned the possibility of getting a second job. Mow lawns, shovel sidewalks, walk dogs… there are a ton of odd jobs out there to find that most people really don’t want to do. You do seem to have at least some free time, given how many comments you post here. Technology is one thing you can teach yourself, and it’s a good market to be in (don’t believe all you hear about the dot com bust or outsourcing taking all THAT fun away). You could potentially take an extra job or two, then put the income into fixing your teeth and losing weight (eating healthier?). Then with a renewed sense of purpose and confidence, set out looking for jobs again… or continue to make the extra money and little by little save and move to a part of the country where either the cost of living is lower or the demand for your particular skills, whatever you may have, is higher.
It’s not that I don’t have compassion for your situation. I do! It sounds like you have caught some tough breaks. But there is truth in the statements that people are making: you consider yourself a victim. Everyone, EVERYONE has choices. Not everyone has great choices, but everyone has them. If you were absolutely determined to make a better life for yourself, there is very little that could stop you from doing just that.
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Another note, MW, that will hopefully be helpful: sending out a resume is rarely enough to get a job. Follow up by calling, be friendly and remind them of your name. Find a way to stand out from the crowd. Even if you don’t have experience in something, emphasize your good qualities and stress that you will work hard to learn as quickly as possible. Smile a lot, regardless of your need for dental work. (By the way, the more self-concious you feel about your appearance, the more likely it is that it will affect your getting hired. If you show that it doesn’t bother you and display confidence and a go-getter attitude, you have a better chance of getting a potential employer to see past your appearance and to your potential worth.)
Also, a lot of cities have free career clinics. Try looking one up! They may be able to help.
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The government does what? It forces you to spend more on housing? What on freakin’ earth is going on here?
I’ll go further than that. Ever read Thomas Sowell. As a world-class black conservative economist, he nails economic issues like nobody else can or will.
In Markets and Minorities (1981), Sowell devoted a chapter to housing, complete wqith the kind of graphs you saw in Econ 101.
Sowell demonstrated that government zoning and housing policies effectively redistribute income from (lower income) renters to (higher income) owners.
Don’t take my word for it, I have a solid source.
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I would still be living in the projects playing video games all day.
Poor people don’t need housing projects. They need a free market in housing. The private sector is perfectly able to provide all the housing the poor need, if government would just stop making it do darned expensive to build housing.
Ever heard of development fees, impact fees, building permit fees, red tape, bureaucratic delay, NIMBYs, and all the embedded costs of new construction? Jack Kemp had a lot to say on this back in the 1980s.
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Why can you deduct interest paid on a mortgage but not on a car? (For the record, I’m not in favor of deductions for either) Why don’t you have to pay taxes on capital gains from a sold residence but not from stocks?
Interest on consumer debt (e.g. car loans) used to be deductible. Sales taxes also used to be deductible, with a standard allowance based on your income and your state (so that you didn’t have to actually save all your receipts, although you still had the option of keeping the receipts and taking a larger deduction if appropriate.
Those deductions went away around the late 70s, and the tax breaks for homeownership were expanded.
Homeowners, and their Realtor (R) advocates, are 800-pound gorillas of American politics. Most politicians shamelessly pander to homeowner interests, and it’s hard to say no to a huge bloc of voters and campaign contributors – even when a lot of homeowners are at fault, as with the current subprime bailout.
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Still, even with the mortgage deduction, that doesn’t always make home ownership a good idea (the current boom/bust being a good example, not to mention property taxes, maintenance, insurance, and other liabilities).
The Realtors (R) wouldn’t like it if anyone proposed getting rid of the homeowner deductions. While the deductions reduce the net cost of buying a home, they also pad Realtors’ pockets by promoting higher sales prices, which is the basis of their commissions. It might make plenty of sense (I think existing homeowners should be grandfathered to keep their deductions), but it would be virtually impossible politically.
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You have a point about the government regulation preventing your lot from being split. There are a LOT of dumb government regulations out there (many of them supposedly to support the lower classes) that keep minimum wage and low earners back. It would not surprise me if this one was damaging to your situation too.
It can get complicated, but a lot of regulations are designed or intended to help people OTHER than the “obvious” or ostensible beneficiaries.
Historically, union contracts were based on some multiple of the minimum wage, so when unions say they support a higher minimum wage for the working poor, they are being disingenuous. It’s the UNIONS which benefit most from increasing the minimum wage.
Similarly, a lot of “dumb” housing and zoning regulations are designed for the benefit of existing property owners, who can enjoy rising property values without worrying that a developer will put in a trailer park or tiny houses for poor people like me. In most parts of the country, it’s a lot easier to get approval to build an upscale subdivision than to build anything that might be viewed as downscale housing. That’s why apartments and trailer parks, when they exist, are usually located in the “wrong” neighborhoods.
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In response to comment #82, sales tax is deductible, isn’t it? This deduction was revived a few years back, and I’m almost certain that they extended it to cover 2007 (it was set to expire at the end of 2006). You have a choice between sales tax and state tax, and you can use a tabled value instead of saving receipts if you wish.
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In response to comment #82, sales tax is deductible, isn’t it?
Um, yes and no. I didn’t address this in the previous post because I didn’t want to make it longer than it already was.
A few states have no income tax and a high sales tax. These states thought it was unfair that residents of other states could deduct income taxes but their residents couldn’t deduct thair sales taxes.
So, a few years ago (2000-ish?) Congress made sales taxes deductible for residents of states without an income tax. Sales taxes remain non-deductible for residents of states with an income tax.
Complicated, isn’t it?
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re: #86. If you have sales tax and income tax you can choose between them. You can’t deduct them both, but you can deduct the higher one.
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re: #86. If you have sales tax and income tax you can choose between them. You can’t deduct them both, but you can deduct the higher one.
Ah, thank you, I totally didn’t know you could shooae one or the other.
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I worked a cloe-to-minimum wage job (as a security guard) for just over 12 months … but spent that time studying.
Then I got a marginally better paid job which I held down for just over 3 years … during which time my salary went from c. $20k p.a to $28k p.a
It was clear that although I was getting the experience I needed, I wasn’t advancing anywhere, and part of that was a lack of certifiations/qualifications. So I quit my day-job and lived on my savings for 9 months while I did some industry-standard certifications (I had saved $15k over the previous 3.5 years … which is good considering I had only earned $84k BEFORE tax).
I was given a 3-month contract before I even completed the course ($35k “pro-rata”), and was hired directly from there to where I’m working now (hired at €40k). The 4th “anniversary” of being hired by that company has just come and gone. I’ve been promoted three times, and now earn just over $60k
Looking back, I recognize that I should have “moved on” from that first job I got after the first year … or at very least used the time to study and do additional relevant courses and certifications … I was working for a University!
However, setting that aside … since I left that job and started studying, I have never STOPPED studying for more than a couple of months at a time – and I would attribute a lot of my personal success to the confidence and recognition that this brings.
Yes – it can be expensive to study … but it’s more expensive to do menial work for minimum wage indefinitely!
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What would you have done if you had no savings and could not afford the certifications?
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Dear Minimum Wage. I would like to offer you and others a new paradigm.Your problem is not your minimum wage. Your problem is money management.I am 51 and always had minimum wage jobs, indeed almost all of my jobs were below minimum wage yet I always managed to save money. How? I used that old and now all but forgotten value called “do without”. I am very thrifty. I almost never bought new clothes. I am constantly looking for bargins. If I see a penny I pick it up. EVERY penny counts. Find a place you can rent cheaper. You CAN buy a house, maybe a junker, but you can fix it up. if you can’t buy, build one with your own two hands. Don’t know how? Learn. Same with a car or anything else. Ride a bike. Buy a moped. Build from where you are.Ask your landlord to let you do some work on the house for reduced rent. There are millions of things you can do. Minimum wage??? To me that’s a fotune these days. No wonder the rest of the world hates Americans.Most importantly of all pay your tithes. Give away 10%. Nothing makes you finacially disciplined quicker. You are right about goverment red tape, but that too can be overcome. Another first step is learning the difference between a want and a need. You need air, water, a minimum of food, a minimum of clothing, a minimum of shelter. EVRYTHING ELSE IS A LUXURY.(not shouting just emphasizing)
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